Appliance Insurance - Reasonable time for repairs

lislaw

Hi, looking for some advice. I have appliance protection on my washing machine which now requires some serious repairs as the motor has fallen off it's mounting onto the drum and it must be replaced. The policy covers call outs, repairs, replacement parts and provides for a replacement machine should my own be considered "beyond economic repair".

I should point out that I've had the policy for several years and have never had any problems with the company/engineer/policy in the past.

So, when my machine broke down this time I put in my initial call to the company and was given a fairly prompt appointment a few days later (24 April), when the repair guy called he informed of the above and said he would need to order parts and he estimated they would be in on the Thursday/Friday and that I would get a call as usual from the office.

I subsequently got a call from him to say the parts had not come in and that it would be a few days and the office would give me a call with a date etc. No problem there.

Last week I got a call from the call centre office to say the repairs would be carried out today (10 May) and that I would get a text confirming this as normal and a call from the engineer before hand - all fairly usual as he's been here a good few times before for other issues.

However, I didn't get a text yesterday or a phone call from the engineer himself (which is unusual) and by this morning was thinking maybe I'd gotten the days mixed up and that the call out was actually for next Thursday - and quickly began hoping my neighbour and good friend would still be happy to let me use her machine for another week!!!

Then I received a call from the insurance company informing me that the repair visit would not be happening today and that the engineer was off or away and the parts had been sent to him but they weren't sure where they were or if they would be able to arrange for someone else etc - it was a bit confusing as to what she was actually trying to say, to be honest. Anyway, she said she would try to find out where the parts were and when they would be able to rearrange a repair visit and would give me a call back within the hour. Fine.

When they called back, I was informed the parts hadn't arrived and that they were unsure (a) when they would come in and (b) when a repair visit could be arranged and that they would contact me as soon as they had more information.

So after that very long story what I'm hoping for some advice on is this:

How long is a reasonable length of time before repairs under an insurance policy such as this should be carried out? There is no timescale laid out in the policy and I'm wondering if there is some general guidelines as to what this timeframe is.

And I suppose, if the parts/repair doesn't seem to be forthcoming am I in a position to begin requesting that they replace the machine? The question again, I suppose, is how long do I wait, or indeed NEED to wait before taking that route.

I may be way off the mark here - but I'm starting to come to the idea that maybe the idea is to put of major repairs for so long that I eventually just give up and buy a new machine, saving them the cost of the parts and labour.

Thanks for any help/advice
Lisa

deandean

Hi Lisa, the 'Appliance protection'- is this one of those extra-cost policies you take out when you buy the appliance, i.e. €xx extra for y years protection against any / all problems', ?

lislaw

Hi deandean

No, it's not. It's just an insurance policy that covers repairs due to breakdown. I took it out after my machine "broke down" the first time - well second time. I fixed it myself the first time. - The filter is in the back of the machine, so when it gets blocked the back of the machine needs to come off and the pipe to the filter unscrewed to be cleared. I've done it myself a few times when I don't want to wait the few days before a visit can be scheduled, but I noticed early on that the part is made of plastic and removing and rescrewing it was wearing it out and it would eventually break so I took out the policy - it's a minimal amount every month and has paid for itself several times over at this stage - I've had the rubber seal, the drum and motor replaced so far as well as filter cleared a few times.

I should update as well: A new appointment has been scheduled for next Tuesday - apparently the parts delivery has "gone missing" AGAIN, that's twice now, and so new ones have been ordered and should be here for Tuesday. We'll see.

Procrastastudy

I'd get on to the ombudsman if this is one of those British Gas type efforts. Thats assuming they are covered?